We all watched the Al Jazeera documentary showcasing that
steroids and performance enhancing drugs were still prevalent in sports, and
not just Major League Baseball. The documentary showed that many athletes in
the NFL and in MLB are still using steroids and are blatantly getting away with
it. If you haven’t seen the documentary it’s on the blog for you to see. The
Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies cannot be happy about seeing
their players mentioned in this documentary, Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard
respectively, especially the Phillies who are simply waiting out the Howard
contract and hoping to unload it to an American League team as they rebuild. If
the Phillies fans need a shoulder to cry on it can definitely be a Yankees
fan’s shoulder because us here in New York know exactly how you feel.
Let’s just assume for the sake of this article that
Zimmerman and Howard really did steroids, and I venture to say that the
Phillies are hoping its true anyway, this could spell the end of Howard’s tenure
in Philadelphia. Howard is set to make a whopping $25 million in 2016 and
another $10 million in 2017 if and when the Phillies buy out the final year of
his contract and has played below replacement level in recent seasons.
Meanwhile Zimmerman is signed through the 2019 season with $62 million
remaining on his contract and barely played to replacement level in 2015. If
either men are suspended their teams will benefit twice. We don’t know the
timeline in which the steroids were being used but you would have to think the
team would benefit from the performance that was enhanced by the drugs and now
the teams will benefit from the suspensions as well.
The players are not paid while on suspension for drugs and
steroids thus saving the Phillies roughly $12.5 million in 2016. The teams get
off free while the players get all the punishment and such, this is likely to
change soon I think. The team has absolutely no incentive to keep the game
clean. They benefit from the performance boost or the injury recoup time and
then they benefit fiscally when the player is suspended. Doesn’t seem fair,
does it?
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)